Suspected SIMI men kill cop in Hyderabad

A police constable was killed and two others were injured in an attack by suspected Islamist militants in Hyderabad.

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A Srinivasa Rao

Hyderabad

May 15, 2010

UPDATED: May 15, 2010 09:04 IST

Two masked motorcycle-borne men indiscriminately fired at a police picket of five constables at 4.30 pm and fled from the area. The shooting took place in front of the Volga Caf at Shah-Ali Banda, a few metres from the city's landmark Charminar.

Constable Ramesh Kumar received bullet injuries to his head and shoulder and died on the spot. Two other constables also received bullet wounds and were immediately admitted to the Osmania General Hospital. Their condition is said to be stable.

City police commissioner A. K. Khan, who was touring parts of the old city at the time of the shooting, rushed to the spot.

He said the attack is likely to have been executed by Fayaz Farhan and Syed Viqaruddin - two activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

Viqaruddin, who had undergone training at a citybased organisation Dargah-Jihad-O-Shahadat, was also instrumental in the attack on two constables at Santoshnagar on December 3, 2008. One constable had died in that incident. He, along with two other accomplices, managed to escape and reportedly fled the country.

Recently, the police received credible information from the intelligence department that Viqaruddin and his associates had entered Hyderabad again with the objective of carrying out major terror attacks on the occasion of the third anniversary of Mecca Masjid blasts.

Thirteen people were killed in that blast on May 18, 2007.

Following the intelligence inputs, the Hyderabad Police have been conducting regular raids and frisking people.

Police pickets have been set up.

"The attack was not a random incident. It was preplanned.

The miscreants fired at the constables taking advantage of their change in shift," Khan said.

"The area is congested. It was difficult to stop them," he added.

Ramesh, 26, belonging to the Andhra Pradesh special police, hailed from Madanapalle of Chittoor district.

He was working in the Hussaini Alam police station. His wife Shanta Kumari is also a constable.

The commissioner said a high alert has been sounded across the city and efforts were on to arrest the perpetrators at the earliest.

Chief minister K. Rosaiah expressed his anguish over the incident and has promised to bring the killers to justice soon.

The old city area of Hyderabad had witnessed deadly communal clashes in March end. The clashes had left three persons dead and curfew was imposed for nearly a fortnight.

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